Death all around me

Now that you know that I arrived safely from Everest Base, I can tell you that at one critical point before facing my biggest trekking challenge that death was all around me.

The day before I was to arrive at Gokyo, a women died from high altitude sickness(HAS). HAS comes on quickly and suddenly where you often don't know quite what it happening to your body. It happens above 7500 feet. Anyway, she died at 3am after mourning all night. I met an Israeli, who listened to the mourning all night and met the husband in the hallway at 4 crying when he(Israeli) was up for a sunrise viewing of Mount Everest. The victim was worked on by doctors from 10pm until 3am, but they could not save her. A helicopter could not pick her body up because of the bad weather, so they walked the corpse down the mountain scaring most of the trekkers. It was a sobering moment about the risks involved in high altitude trekking. The Israeli said you have to "respect the mountains and come home alive." He then descended and left the mountain since he was so unnerved.

Since that happened, I heard, many stories about death, fast evacuations to lower altitudes and helicopter evacuations to Kathmandu. If most often strikes the young and fit who think that they were not at risk. The older folks take their time and were aware of the risks involved so they did not have problems. Another porter died last week and 14 porters died last year. The risks are real.

After I stayed at a place, I found out that ten years before in the same spot an avalanche wiped out the village, and a group of 26 workers and tourists.

Lastly, 20 German tourists were killed in a small plane crash on the way to Everest Base Camp a month ago.

Life is short and can pass quickly. I hope my luck continues.